Eye of Siva » movies

New Doctor Who movie?

siva — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:38:20 +0000

I read in The Register that David Yates (director of the last four Harry Potter films) has been approached to do a Doctor Who movie. I have quite enjoyed the more recent Potter movies and think this could be a good idea. So the question is, who will play the Doctor?

Clearly Matt Smith could be a front runner for the job if he is still around in the role when filming starts. Or this could be a nice way to introduce a new Doctor and follow up the movie with TV serials. Perhaps they can get David Tennant to come back for a reprisal. I think Hugh Grant could be a great Doctor. He did play the Doctor once before (in a Children In Need special).

I really do hope that it will be a Brit in any case. As El Reg says in the article, you could get someone like Robert Downey Jr who did a fairly competent Sherlock Holmes. What about the other Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch?

Nice Tam Rant

siva — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:14:26 +0000

Today’s Times of India has a nice rant by Sharmila Ganesan-Ram on the stereotyping of Madrasis in Bollywood films even today. Worth a read for all of us suffering thair-sadam types.

A quick excerpt. Read it for a nice morning laugh. And if you are a real tam-bram, you are probably reading this over a nice steaming cup of filter coffee. Enjoy.

For ages now,the Hindi film industry has assumed that all the four Indian states close to the equator speak the same language.That everyone in Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka and Kerala,is,in fact,a Madrasi.So,consistently,it resorts to extreme caricaturism or hackneyed hearsay every time it wants to portray this mythical Madrasi figure.That is why the Tamilian on the big screen in Hindi cinema is never subtle or understated.He is,for the most part,the man with the ridiculous accent,given to saying Saar, Baas or Aiyyo and cracking bad jokes in a lungi. So,when I bought tickets to the film on the first day,I hoped secretly that SRK would break these ridiculous stereotypes.

Alas,it was no different

10 billion itunes songs

siva — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:46:21 +0000

So apparently Apple has sold 10 billion songs on itunes. The store has been up for a few years now and is currently one of the biggest music retailers in the world. Ergo it is reasonable to expect that the best sellers during this time would reflect the best music of the decade. Maybe the top seller would be an all-time classic? The top three songs are:

3. The Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow

2. Lady GaGa – Poker Face

1. The Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling

This site has a listing of the top 10. All of the top 10 are very recent hit songs. Even Kesha made it on the list!

How does that happen? Perhaps the growth rate of itunes is so rapid that the newest hits are automatically the best selling ever. Perhaps the buying public are teenagers and they listen to these songs the most. Perhaps in ten or twenty years we will hear Tik Tok on the radio and think back to the good old days when music was good!

A fallout of the digital age is the shrinkage of time between fads. A decade or so back, movies used to run for several weeks. 100-day runs were reasonably common. These days the movie has gone to TV and DVD within 100 days. The rare blockbuster like Avatar plays for a couple of months. Part of the reason for this is the explosion in available media for consumption. The Economist has got the data deluge on its cover this week (have not read it yet). So there is utter fragmentation of the viewing public. Niches have become easier to fill. For example, smaller movie theaters don’t mind showing offbeat movies that appeal to smaller audiences as compared to the larger auditoria. Equally it is rare for a “cross-cultural” movie (or album or book or …). Perhaps the Black Eyed Peas and Avatar are examples of these breakout cultural examples?